Mother's Day

Wow this week has gone ridiculously fast I can’t believe Sunday has come round again...it's feels so weird to think that in 10 days time we'll be on our way to Bolivia! 

Whilst I remember-that trip to the manatee sanctuary? Never happened, we got sidetracked by a pool trip, we only went in to investigate if it’s even possible to use hotel pools, but when we found out we got unlimited buffet AND a margarita we were sold. Although it was an amazingly relaxing day, Alex and I both felt unbelievably out of place, we didn’t realise until we’d paid and entered that we’d somehow ended up at a ‘Pool Party’ organised by one of the only nightclubs in Iquitos! Hilarious but slightly bizarre, we were surrounded by people who you could tell from first sight we very well off-they were staying in the only 5 star hotel in Iquitos for starters and with our travellery rucksack and Alex’s fibre, fast dry towel we must have looked seriously out of place!

      So it was amazingly relaxing but I can safely say we definitely won’t be returning back there any time soon, back to our cheapo days off sightseeing like regular tourist travellers! 

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, on Tuesday we had our cinema trip with Modulo Uno (the boys house) We took 8 of the boys, their Tía Daisy and her 2 kids-quite a full house but it was really good fun. Trying to be all organised and saving money I bought loads of popcorn to make with the kids before we went out, only realising once we were stood waiting for them all to start popping-after twenty minutes that I somehow managed to buy corn seeds they feed to chickens-which is why it was so cheap! Apart from the chicken food  the cinema was really good fun, we saw The Avengers, some comic book hero kind of film- definitely not my kind of film at all but you could tell they all loved it because there was barely a word from them once it started. They had a play around the arcade bit after the film too and the whole afternoon was just awesome! Every now and then I get moments like that that put me in a whole other perspective, seeing how much they enjoyed it made me realise it was worth spending our money on. I’m pretty sure that was the first time 3 or 4 of my boys have ever been to the cinema and the fact that we gave them that opportunity makes me feel happy, happy, happy.

The Spanish girls came back from Milagros on Wednesday because of Mothers day celebrations they had a half week. Yaiza’s fever has finally gone down to 37 and she’s now on new antibiotics but she looked SO much better so fingers crossed she keeps on improving! We’ve had a pretty busy arty week finishing off our Mothers Day decorations, they celebrate it here on the 13^th May but to ensure that all the office staff were included we had the Aldea celebrations on Thursday afternoon. Some of the kids did dances and we had poem recitals from two of the older girls, it was a really nice afternoon. The Tías from every house got presented with a rose from the kids, 2 massive presents each and we got one child from every modulo to give out the cards which we made with them to their Tía. It was lovely seeing how surprised and pleased they were with it.                                                                                                                          ,            The whole afternoon made me think about mothers in general and how it has so many different interpretations. For so many of the younger kids the Aldea is all they’ve ever known so to them the Tías are their mothers; for the older kids they look up to these Tías as the only form of mother figure they’ve ever really had- which to me is automatically without thinking the way I see it as well. To me the Tías are mothers to these kids and it’s so easy to forget that every single one of these Tías living and working in the Aldea 24 hours a day, here 7 days out of an 8 day cycle with their free weekend every month also has their own family, their own children and their own mother who they barely ever get to see because they are here earning a living and providing for that family. It made me think that they really don’t get anywhere near the appreciation that they deserve, so today as I write this all the Tías are spending the day with their own families which is so needed and hopefully being spoilt rotten by them too!

More excitingly this week I finally got a notice telling me that my kindle had arrived safe and sound in Iquitos and I could go to pick it up on Friday. I sent it home with my parents (middle of April) because its 3G was poorly so they could send it to the Amazon doctors. I never ever thought I’d say this, especially after only a month of not having it but: PAPER BOOKS ARE NOT THE SAME.  That whole saying, you never appreciate something until you don’t have it-so totally, ridiculously true. I’ve only had it since July but I literally can’t imagine having to go back permanently to reading without it, uni is going to be hell! This isn’t turning into some hidden selling persuasion I swear but it’s just so amazing having it back, being able to look up any word I want, having so many different books to choose from and it automatically remembering what page you’re up to, it’s lovely. However the 4 moto-taxi journeys, the 2 hour wait in the post office and the 69-soles I had to pay to get it back weren’t so lovely! They failed to mention in my exciting little letter, that to actually get my kindle back I’d have to travel back and forth between the customs office, some weird credit bank AND the post office, filling out all kinds of different stupid forms, having a little man making me photocopy every form he possibly could then send me off to pay tax, come back to get a stamp- A MEASLY TINY WEENY STAMP YOU COULD BARELY SEE! Just to return back to the post office with all my photocopied bits of paper and stamps and receipts, to then be told that the lady who had the key to my Kindle had left early and I would have to come back tomorrow!  So after about 15 soles worth of journeying around Iquitos I finally have my kindle back safe and sound, but I seriously cannot wait until sending anything via old fashioned post is nowhere near as complicated. Although another upside to my adventures I did make friends with an old moto-taxi driver called Juan who ended up taking me everywhere and telling me all about his lifelong dreams of travelling and that at 54 he’s never gone further than Lima-what a babe.

AAAHHH the most exciting thing to happen to us this week, our new arrival on Thursday baby Maria de Rosario, at 6 days old. 6 DAYS!! It’s crazily amazing how tiny and beautiful she is, she weighs barely anything but she’s healthy and happy which is the most important thing, here because her mother didn’t think she could afford to keep her. She’s the new member of Modulo Uno and I really don’t understand how anyone could have the guts to let this beautiful baby out of their life but it’s their loss. No doubt from now on I’m going to be blabbering on about our new baby baby and any tiny little thing she does-keep an eye out!